"aunt from the State of Georgia, that ""She knew all the 'Br'er Rabbit' stories, and I was brought up on them. One of my uncles, Robert Roosevelt, was much struck with them, and took them down from her dictation, publishing them in ""Harper's"", where they fell flat. This was a good many years before a genius arose who, in 'Uncle Remus', made the stories immortal."" These stories were popularized for the mainstream audience in the late 19th century by Joel Chandler Harris (1845–1908), who wrote down and published many such stories that had been passed down by oral tradition. Harris"
"of the tales and wiles of Brer Rabbit to ""Indian captivity narratives"" and the rabbit trickster found in Cherokee mythology. In arguing for a merged ""African–Native American folklore"", the idea is forwarded that certain shared ""cultural affinities"" between African Americans and Native Americans allowed both groups ""through the trickster tales…survive[d] European American cultural and political domination."" While the trickster crosses various cultural traditions, there are significant differences between tricksters in the traditions of different parts of the world: Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had"
"The Adventures of Brer Rabbit The Adventures of Brer Rabbit is a book, a play, and a film inspired by the Uncle Remus stories. The central character's actual name is Br'er Rabbit (short for Brother Rabbit), but in the title ""Br'er"" is simplified as ""Brer"". The book's full title is """" and was written by Julius Lester, and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. Lester received the Coretta Scott King Award in 1988 for this work. A one-act play entitled ""The Adventures of Brer Rabbit"" was written by Gayle Cornelison. The play was first performed in 1977 at the California Theatre Center"
"in the Brer Rabbit Tar Baby story (e.g., rabbit needing to be taught a lesson, punches and head butting the rabbit does, the stuck rabbit being swung around and around) are reminiscent of those found in a Zimbabwe-Botswana folktale. Folklorists in the late 19th century first documented evidence that the American versions of the stories originated among enslaved West Africans based on connections between Br'er Rabbit and ""Leuk"", a rabbit trickster in Senegalese folklore. The stories of Br'er Rabbit were written down by Robert Roosevelt, an uncle of US President Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography about his"
"lived in isolation from Europeans in the remote past, a substantial amount of interaction was to occur among North American tribes, Europeans, and those from the enslaved population during the 18th and 19th centuries. It is impossible to ascertain whether the Cherokee story independently predated the African American story. In a Cherokee tale about the briar patch, ""the fox and the wolf throw the trickster rabbit into a thicket from which the rabbit quickly escapes."" There was a ""melding of the Cherokee rabbit-trickster ... into the culture of African slaves."" Br'er Rabbit Br'er Rabbit (Brother Rabbit), also spelled Bre'r Rabbit"
"a similar theme, but often had a trickster rabbit as a protagonist. The Native American trickster rabbit appears to have resonated with African-American story-tellers and was adopted as a cognate of the Anansi character with which they were familiar. Other authorities state the widespread existence of similar stories of a rabbit and tar baby throughout indigenous Meso-American and South American cultures. Thus, the tale of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby represents a coming together of two separate folk traditions, American and African, which coincidentally shared a common theme. Most of the other Br'er Rabbit stories originated with Cherokee or"
"featuring Brewer scholars Bruce Glasrud and Milton Jordan as well as a panel discussion involving his former colleagues and students. Brewer described his tales in ""Dog Ghosts"" in his own words as ""as varied as the Texas landscape, as full of contrasts as Texas weather. Among them are tales that have their roots deeply embedded in African, Irish, and Welsh mythology; other have parallels in pre-Columbian Mexican traditions; and a few have versions that can be traced back to Chaucer's England."" ""Sources"" J. Mason Brewer John Mason Brewer (March 24, 1896–1975) was an American folklorist, scholar, and writer noted for"
"The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit is a 1987 Children's book by Julius Lester and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. It is a retelling of the American Br'er Rabbit tales. ""Publishers Weekly"" in a review of ""The Tales of Uncle Remus"" wrote ""This collection is important as a way of introducing readers to the Harris tales; it also stands alone as a volume of wonderfully funny folktales. For many purists, though, it will not replace the original stories. Pinkney's drawings, both black-and-white and color, nicely combine realistic detail"
"The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble ""The Rabbits who caused all the Trouble"" is a short modern fable written by James Thurber. It first appeared in ""The New Yorker"" on August 26, 1939; and was first collected in his book ""Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated"" (Harper and Brothers, 1940). The fable has since been reprinted in ""The Thurber Carnival"" (Harper and Brothers, 1945), ""James Thurber: Writings and Drawings"" (The Library of America, 1996, ), ""The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales"", and other publications. The story is often used in classes that teach English as a"
"company that attracted enough investors to embark on a ten-year plan of restoration. Some investors are descendants of former owners. The ""Brer Rabbit"" and ""Br'er Fox"" tales are variations on traditional stories that originated in Senegal and were brought to America around the 1720s by enslaved Africans. According to the plantation's history, Alcée Fortier, a neighbor of the family and student of folklore, came there in the 1870s to listen to the freedmen. He collected the stories which freedmen told their children in Louisiana Créole French language. These stories were about Compair Lapin and Compair Bouki (the clever rabbit and"
"His Songs and His Sayings"" (1880). The stories, mostly collected directly from the African-American oral storytelling tradition, were revolutionary in their use of dialect, animal personages, and serialized landscapes. Remus' stories featured a trickster hero called Br'er Rabbit (Brother Rabbit), who used his wits against adversity, though his efforts did not always succeed. Br'er Rabbit is a direct interpretation of Yoruba tales of Hare, though some others posit Native American influences as well. The scholar Stella Brewer Brookes asserts, ""Never has the trickster been better exemplified than in the Br'er Rabbit of Harris."" Br'er Rabbit was accompanied by friends and"
"Br'er Rabbit Br'er Rabbit (Brother Rabbit), also spelled Bre'r Rabbit or Brer Rabbit or Bruh Rabbit, is a central figure as Uncle Remus tells stories of the Southern United States. Br'er Rabbit is a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit. The Walt Disney Company later adapted this character for its 1946 animated motion picture ""Song of the South"". In one tale, Br'er Fox constructs a doll out of a lump of tar and dresses it with some clothes. When Br'er Rabbit comes along he addresses"
"The Tale of Benjamin Bunny The Tale of Benjamin Bunny is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in September 1904. The book is a sequel to ""The Tale of Peter Rabbit"" (1902), and tells of Peter's return to Mr. McGregor's garden with his cousin Benjamin to retrieve the clothes he lost there during his previous adventure. In ""Benjamin Bunny"", Potter deepened the rabbit universe she created in ""Peter Rabbit"", and, in doing so, suggested the rabbit world was parallel to the human world but complete and sufficient unto itself."
"a production company called Cherokee Robot. Erb's collaboration with students has led to some surprising new developments in the retelling of oral histories. Muscogee Creek middle school students and Erb created a video that combined animation, claymation and diorama sets to tell the story of Indian Removal. Their account has the Muscogee Creeks, freezing on the Trail of Tears, traveling through space to Paris, France, where beret-wearing Frenchmen teach the Creeks to stomp dance. Rabbit, the Muscogee Trickster, steals a coal of fire from the French and takes it back to the Creeks on their way to Indian Territory. Erb"
"The Tale of Peter Rabbit The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a British children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter that follows mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit as he is chased about the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother, who puts him to bed after dosing him with tea. The tale was written for five-year-old Noel Moore, son of Potter's former governess Annie Carter Moore, in 1893. It was revised and privately printed by Potter in 1901 after several publishers' rejections, but was printed in a trade edition by Frederick Warne &"
"in several sources that are similar to the Brer Rabbit tales as published, which represent a folk genre. Examples include the Ila language ""Sulwe mbwakatizha Muzovu"" (""Hare makes the elephant afraid"") in Smith & Dale ""The Ila-Speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia"" volume 2, page 309. In the totally unrelated Kanuri or Bornuese culture in Northern Nigeria, such tales as a ""Fable of Jackal and a Hyena"" display similar themes quite in the Brer Rabbit manner. The difficulties in obtaining printed sources on the African languages may have inhibited these aspects of critical treatment. Some critical scholars cite Uncle Remus as"
"The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in July 1909. After two full-length tales about rabbits, Potter had grown weary of the subject and was reluctant to write another. She realized however that children most enjoyed her rabbit stories and pictures, and so reached back to characters and plot elements from ""The Tale of Peter Rabbit"" (1902) and ""The Tale of Benjamin Bunny"" (1904) to create ""The Flopsy Bunnies"". A semi-formal garden of archways and flowerbeds in"
"only one which is adequate to withstand the wolf. Variations of the tale appeared in ""Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings"" in 1881. The story also made an appearance in ""Nights with Uncle Remus"" in 1883, both by Joel Chandler Harris, in which the pigs were replaced by Brer Rabbit. Andrew Lang included it in ""The Green Fairy Book"", published in 1892, but did not cite his source. In contrast to Jacobs's version, which left the pigs nameless, Lang's retelling cast the pigs as Browny, Whitey, and Blacky. It also set itself apart by exploring each pig's character and detailing"
"he fabricated the story that he wrote the song after his car was snowed in by a blizzard and he was taken in by Cherokee Indians. A self-professed prankster, he spun the tale that a Cherokee chieftain, ""Bloody Bear Tooth"" asked him to make a song about his people's plight and the Trail of Tears, even going so far as to claim that he had later been awarded ""the first medal of the Cherokee Nation"", not for writing the song, but for his ""blood""; further fabricating that his ""great-great grandparents, Homer and Matilda Loudermilk"" were listed on the Dawes Rolls."
"on behalf of. A text given by Smith and Dale, Sulwe Mbwakatizha Muzovu (""How Mr. Hare managed to scare Mr. Elephant"") presents what might be called a ""classical fabliau"", with animals talking like people, just as in the Fables of Aesop or the Brer Rabbit stories in the African Diaspora. Is it fanciful to see the model for the mischievous, resourceful Brer Rabbit in the Sulwe of this story? It seems that slaves destined for the southern United States were captured and purchased in this area of Zambia. There is at least a statistical possibility that the Brer Rabbit cycle,"
"Animal Fairy Tales Animal Fairy Tales is a collection of short stories written by L. Frank Baum, the creator of the Land of Oz series of children's books. The stories (animal tales, comparable to Aesop's Fables or the ""Just-So Stories"" and ""Jungle Book"" of Rudyard Kipling) first received magazine publication in 1905. For several decades in the twentieth century, the collection was a ""lost"" book by Baum; it resurfaced when the International Wizard of Oz Club published the stories in one volume in 1969. The nine stories in the collection were printed in consecutive monthly issues of ""The Delineator"" (a"
"Myths and Legends of the Pima” written by William Lloyd, provides the creation myths of certain American Indian tribes in order to give insight to their beliefs. Cherokee In at least three Cherokee creation stories, the world begins as a large, unexplored body of water. The only existing beings are the animals and they all live in the sky. In two of these stories, the earth is a great island floating above the water. In another story, the actual land isn't formed until the Water Beetle volunteers to go and explore what is at the bottom of the large body"
"these animal stories are common to widely separated [Native American] tribes among whom there can be no suspicion of [African] influences. Thus the famous ""tar baby"" story has variants, not only among the Cherokee, but also in New Mexico, Washington [State], and southern Alaska—wherever, in fact, the pine supplies enough gum to be molded into a ball for [Native American] uses..."". In the Tar Wolf story, the animals were thirsty during a dry spell, and agreed to dig a well. The lazy rabbit refused to help dig, and so had no right to drink from the well. But she was"
"written by Tom Siddel, where he is portrayed with his trickster characteristics in full force and his status as a god and the implications not left forgotten. Coyote is also an important character in C. Robert Cargill's ""Dreams and Shadows"" series, playing a focal role in the manipulation of the storyline. He is presented as a manitou. One character of the Native American Tricksters that has survived into modern times is that of the Southeast version of the Coyote trickster. Usually called the Great Hare passed into modern American folklore as Brer Rabbit after West African slaves fused him with"
"baby after trying to steal food, but became stuck to it instead. It is a tale well known from a version involving Br'er Rabbit, found in the Uncle Remus stories and adapted and used in the 1946 live-action/animated Walt Disney movie ""Song of the South"". These were derived from African-American folktales in the Southern United States, that had part of their origin in African folktales preserved in oral storytelling by African Americans. Elements of the African Anansi tale were combined by African-American storytellers with elements from Native American tales, such as the Cherokee story of the ""Tar Wolf"", which had"
"Charles Perrault Charles Perrault (; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales. The best known of his tales include ""Le Petit Chaperon Rouge"" (""Little Red Riding Hood""), ""Cendrillon"" (""Cinderella""), ""Le Chat Botté"" (""Puss in Boots""), ""La Belle au bois Dormant "" (""The Sleeping Beauty"") and ""Barbe Bleue"" (""Bluebeard""). Some of Perrault's versions of old stories have influenced the German versions published by the Brothers Grimm more than 100 years later."
"said that the use of the Negro dialect was an effort to add to the effect of the stories and allow the stories to retain their authenticity. The genre of stories is the trickster tale. At the time of Harris's publication, his work was praised for its ability to capture plantation Negro dialect. Br'er Rabbit (""Brother Rabbit"") is the main character of the stories, a likable character, prone to tricks and troublemaking, who is often opposed by Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. In one tale, Br'er Fox constructs a doll out of a lump of tar and puts clothing on"
"gullibly believes it will inflict the maximum pain on Br'er Rabbit. As rabbits are at home in thickets, however, the resourceful Br'er Rabbit escapes. The story was originally published in ""Harper's Weekly"" by Robert Roosevelt; years later Joel Chandler Harris wrote of the Tar-Baby in his Uncle Remus stories. Variations on the tar-baby legend are found in the folklore of more than one culture. In the ""Journal of American Folklore"", Aurelio M. Espinosa discussed various different motifs within 267 versions of the tar-baby story that were ostensibly 'in his possession'. Espinosa used the existence of similar motifs to argue that"
"and began issuing the Bedtime Stories series (20 books originally published 1913–1919, including such titles as ""The Adventures of Reddy Fox"" and ""The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel"") in 1949. The original Little, Brown editions had plates of high quality paper for the illustrations, but the Grosset & Dunlap editions were to print the illustrations on the same stock as the text. They commissioned the original artist, Harrison Cady, to recreate the illustrations as line drawings appropriate for that type of paper, and to create many additional illustrations. Where the original Little, Brown editions had six full-page illustrations, the"
"1888, his ""Myths of the Cherokee"" references the ""Walum Olum."" In his ""Historical sketch of the Cherokee"" at the beginning of the work he attempts to adduce the origins of the term 'Cherokee:' ""...among other synonyms for the tribe are Rickahockan or Rechahecrian, the ancient Powhatan name, and Tallige', or Tallige'wi, the ancient name used in the ""Walam Olum"" chronicle of the Lenape'."" In the 1930s, Erminie Voegelin attempted to find evidence of ""Walam Olum"" narrative elements in independent Lenni-Lenape and Delaware sources; the parallels were at best inconclusive. Doubts about the text's authenticity began to grow. In 1952 renowned"
"published. Baum wrote another story for the collection; entitled ""The Tiger's Eye"", it is a grim, harsh story about evil magic enchanting animals and men which was not printed until 1962. Another edition of ""Animal Fairy Tales"", including the original illustrations by Charles Bull, appeared in 1992. Animal Fairy Tales Animal Fairy Tales is a collection of short stories written by L. Frank Baum, the creator of the Land of Oz series of children's books. The stories (animal tales, comparable to Aesop's Fables or the ""Just-So Stories"" and ""Jungle Book"" of Rudyard Kipling) first received magazine publication in 1905. For"
"Peter Rabbit"" (1902), followed by ""The Tale of Benjamin Bunny"" (1904), and ""The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies"" (1909). Potter's anthropomorphic clothed rabbits are probably the most familiar artistic rabbits in the English-speaking world, no doubt influenced by illustrations by John Tenniel of the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll's book ""Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"". Joseph Beuys, who always finds a place for a rabbit in his works, sees it as symbolizing resurrection. In the context of his action ""How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare"", he stated that the rabbit ""...has a direct relationship to birth... For me, the"
"round cheese: This folkloric motif is first recorded in literature during the High Middle Ages by the French rabbi Rashi with a Rabbinic parable in his commentary weaving together three Biblical quotations given in the main text (including one on ""sour grapes"") into a reconstruction of some of the Talmudic Rabbi Meir's supposed three hundred fox fables (""משלות שועלים"", in later works ""משלי שועלים""), in the tractate ""Sanhedrin"": Rashi as the first literary reference may reflect the well-known beast fable tradition of French folklore or a more obscure such tradition in Jewish folklore (see also the tradition in Berechiah ha-Nakdan);"